Linked Languages Resources

Ambelau

amv

Ambelau is an Austronesian language; as of 1989, it was spoken by about 5,700 Ambelau people, of whom more than 5,000 lived
on the Indonesian island Ambelau and most others in the village Wae Tawa of the nearby island Buru. The language belongs to
the Central Maluku branch of Malayo-Polynesian languages; there is no consensus in literature on its attribution to a distinct
sub-branch, e.g. Sula–Buru languages. Although Ambelau island is only 20 km away from the much larger Buru island (population
135,000), the Ambelau language is rather different from all languages and dialects of Buru. Its closest analogue (lexical
similarity 44%) is the southern dialect of Buru language, Masarete. The preservation of the language was also unaffected by
the fact that Ambelau people compose only half of the Ambelau island population, and the communication with the Bugis and
Javanese people composing the other half usually occurs in the official language of the country, Indonesian. Ambelau language
has no dialects; so the Ambelau community on Buru island speaks identical language to that used on Ambelau. The language has
no writing system. The most detailed study of Ambelau language was conducted in the 1980s by Charles E. Grimes and Barbara
Dix Grimes – Australian missionaries and ethnographers, active members of SIL International (they should not be confused with
Joseph E. Grimes and Barbara F. Grimes, Charles' parents, also known Australian ethnographers). Source : DBpedia